I plan to do some light marine canvas sewing. have a vintage Kenmore 148-13100 and my stitches seem too close together. I used a heat gun on low and oiled it with triflow. That helped. On the “8” setting, they seem to be about 2.5mm long. But I’d like to get the stitches as long as they are on the basting stitch setting. Those are about 4mm. BTW, is there any reason I can’t use the basting stitch as a permanent stitch? Seems plenty strong to me.